Sky High Lolita
by WhiteLadyDragon
Summary: Post-series. "Why does it bother me so much? I didn't know that girl; I didn't make her jump. On the other hand, it's not exactly like I couldn't have done something about it."
1. Glimpse

_**Disclaimer! **_******All fictional entities featured/ mentioned in this segment belong to Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata; except Rin, who I made up for the purpose of this fan fiction. **

******This fic is kind of OC-centric, but it concerns Misa's suicide. Not sure when she did it; it says that she did it on Valentine's Day in the manga, so I'm kind of going with that. **

******First Death Note fic.**

**__****SKY-HIGH LOLITA**

It was another normal Valentine's Day. I didn't have a date; I didn't need one. I treated myself to a romantic stroll home from work. After all, don't they say that there's no greater love than the love of self? Hell, I liked to think that I earned it, after listening to my boss's stale old song while valiantly resisting the temptation to dump sugar into the gas tank of her car after I punched out.

Though even if I did give into temptation, I don't think I would've keeled over or anything. That crazy Kira bastard is long gone, and even if he wasn't, it wasn't like he was "all-seeing," right?

I had my binoculars out and everything, my head tilted towards the orange juice sky. I know, it sounds pretty stupid to go walking through the dirty urbia with binoculars like I'm hiking through some jungle watching for exotic birds. But you got to make do with what you have. I was sort of walking through a jungle, a _concrete _jungle. Besides, the sunset was so incredible; how could I resist? It made the streets look like the cover of a romance novel.

Until I came across the tracks, I was just messing around, focusing on random buildings and lazy shadows. "Here we see a lovely warehouse with a hole in its roof," I snickered, not giving a damn who listened. "And a flock of pigeons crooning a tune on a phone line…better not crap on me, pretty pigeons!"

I was in such a goofy mood that when I focused on the top of this particular skyscraper, I didn't register what I found up there, right away. "And up there, we have some girl perched outside the safety railing."

…

_Wait, what?_

I checked again, adjusting the focus so I could see a little clearer. Sure enough, some girl was up on top of that skyscraper, staring at the melting slab of butter in the sky that was the sun. She was alone, all dolled up in this Gothic Lolita get-up, black and lacy that fluttered around her ankles like a curtain. The dusk painted her golden hair a ruddy orange, and she had this strange look on her pancake face: hard and lifeless, like one of those creepy porcelain dolls.

Stranger still, she was standing _outside_ the safety rails. With those high-heel shoes she had on, it'd just take one klutzy loss of footing and _whooooooo—SPLAT! _

What was she thinking? Was she even thinking at all? She must've tied that headband on a little too tightly.

Well, I cupped a hand around my mouth and shouted at the peak of my lungs, _"HEY, CRAZY BITCH! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO STAND _INSIDE _THE RAILING!" _

I didn't count on her hearing me; she was too far away, for one, and way too high, and I don't just mean the altitude she was standing at. Not that I cared if she heard me, either. I wouldn't try reasoning with folks of her type: lost in their own fanciful world of black, lacy fetishes, they are. Just throw the two cents into their hat and move on.

So I did. My throat felt mighty sore, but that did little, if not nothing, to sober me up. I didn't look back at that airhead again.

By the next day, I'd mellowed back out, reconnected with practical reality. By the time I'd slipped into the break room, most of the girls were already there, huddled around the paper as I went past them towards the coffee maker.

As soon as I flipped the little red switch, I could hear them mumbling. For some reason, they sounded kind of depressed. Well, initially, that didn't surprise me. Most everything they put in the paper is depressing: a collaboration of disquietude for the sake of disquietude.

"What a tragedy."

"Last I saw her, she was surrounded by bubbles and giggling without a care in the world. How could someone so full of life do something like that?"

Only for the sake of satiating curiosity, I abandoned the brew to pull up a chair. "What's going on?"

Kimi peered up from the paper, her face clouded with the kind of gloom that you'd find on anyone who's read an obituary, God knows why they would. "My God, Rin, you don't know? Misa-Misa's gone."

Misa Amane? That obnoxious model/ pop star with the perky pigtails?

"Oh, yeah? Where'd she go off to?"

Kimi shot me this stern look, all of a sudden, like she didn't appreciate my half-joke. She was always kind of a disciple of Misa's, even though Misa was more like one of those idols targeted towards teenage and pre-teenage girls. "She's _dead, _smartass," she said, all bitter and whatnot.

"Oh." What else could I say? Misa Amane…was _dead?_ Normally, I couldn't care less about some bubble-headed model kicking it, but for some reason, I was starting to feel strange. I got kind of quiet for a second, lost my train of thought before getting it back in the same breath.

"What happened? An accident? Foul play?"

Akemi shifted the paper towards me. "They're calling it a suicide."

_Suicide? _

"What makes them so sure it was suicide?" My voice was starting to shake.

"Well, apparently she jumped. Off the top of some skyscraper in the outskirts of town, by the tracks?"

_Jump…skyscraper…by the tracks? _

"Found her splattered all over the concrete like an egg: an egg in black and lace."

_Black…lace? _

"Have some respect, Akemi!" Kimi lurched over, pinching the spot between her eyes. "I don't get it: she had so much going for her! What made her want to throw it all away?" That Kira character had disappeared for about a year, the only reason why no one in the break room tried to connect him with Misa's gruesome fate, I'm sure.

Akemi shrugged. "Who knows? Whatever the reason, she must've wanted to still look pretty while she was doing it. That Misa: a little lovely Lolita till the end." Those last words might've sounded cute or poetic, but her tone was as sardonic as my boss's coffee mug.

_Lolita…why does that sound familiar? A little _too _familiar…_

The picture provided in the article (unfortunately) tied everything together. The press must not have wanted to depict their darling as the splatter of gore she had become, because what I found instead was a pic of Misa-Misa dressed as an angel, complete with folded white wings, for this movie she'd been cast in and all. With that flirty twinkle in her eye and divine smile gracing her cherry-red lips, there was no way she could have been the same stiff-faced sky-high Lolita I'd seen the day before.

But she was. The tinted lights behind her painted her golden locks a ruddy orange, just as the sunset had on her last day. And the smaller picture of that stupid skyscraper where she stood thrust the truth into my conscience, no ifs, ands or buts about it.

Suddenly, I felt like I was going to puke. The paper began to crinkle in my trembling hands, where all the color from my face drained to.

"What's the matter, Rin?" asked Akemi. "Forgive the cliché, but you look like you've seen a ghost."

"Uh…nothing. I just…need to get my coffee fix. Ladies, include me out." I shoved the paper back to the center of the table and slid out of my seat with as much composure as I could use to make up my face, kind of like how Misa had made up hers before she…jumped.

Why did this bother me so much, anyway? I didn't know Misa—knowing a person exists doesn't qualify as really _knowing_ them, especially if you weren't a fan of theirs, in the first place—and…it wasn't like I had anything to do with her death. _I _didn't make her jump.

On the other hand, it also wasn't like I couldn't have done something about it. I had my cell phone; at the very least, I should've called the cops. Kira didn't have their hands tied up, anymore.

I started to pour the brew into my mug. Then again, the chance that she was thinking about jumping didn't once cross my mind. Maybe it should've? She was outside the goddamn rails! No one in their right mind goes outside the rails unless they're either really dumb or they just don't care anymore.

Kind of made me wonder who was the bigger airhead of the two.

_Glug-glug-glug…_

Gah, even if I _did _do something, it probably wouldn't have mattered! I was too far away! The cops wouldn't have gotten there on time, and even if they had, what could they do?

_Sssh. _

"_Ah!" _

I dropped both the pot and the mug and recoiled. Hot, hissing black brew dribbled between my fingers, scalding my palm. But rather than clean it up, I just stared at my hand. I noticed how dark it was, like that girl's dress. Like her eyes.

…_Though I guess trying and failing would've been better than laughing and calling her a crazy bitch…even if she was exactly that…_

"You're pretty klutzy today, Rin," said Akemi from behind me. "What's the matter: had to drink the whole bottle of wine yourself 'cause you didn't have a guy to share it with?"

"Shut up, Akemi," I hissed, reaching across the sink with my free hand to fumble for the paper towels, desperately seeking to put this behind me.

It felt like somebody put the roll farther away. Higher away.


	2. Haunt

The rest of the day passed by even slower than it usually did, mostly because no one in the office would shut their ever-loving mouths about Misa, like the world had just lost another goddamn Kira-esque messiah or something. I couldn't tell you how many times my fingers writhed with the urge to nab someone, anyone, by the flaps of their collars and beg them to shut up, that it was just a stupid pop star, that it couldn't be helped, that we ought to drop it and let life move on.

But I didn't, mostly because you can't stop people from talking. If the lips go a-flapping, don't try a-capping. Let them flap themselves out.

And mostly because I was too busy trying to tell _myself _that, over and over again, like that damn Misa-Misa CD Kimi had on repeat the whole livelong day.

I stayed in my cubicle the entire time, like a turtle withdrawn into its shell, getting out only to grab a bite to eat and to use the bathroom. And wouldn't you know, Mrs. Inoue noticed I was falling behind in the accounting, but she didn't once loom in on Kimi and tell her to turn her music off.

"Miss Takenaka, is there a particular reason why you're dawdling around?"

The thing about Mrs. Inoue that I hated—among other things—was that she always demanded an answer, and when you did give her an answer, she'd dismiss it as an excuse. You could tell her that you stroked out the night before, and she'd still tell you to pick up the slack or clear out the cubicle for the next one who would. You couldn't win.

I decided to pull out a fake one. Telling the truth would not only bring out the usual repercussions, but if word got out that I'd seen Misa Amane on top of that skyscraper, I'd be done for. They'd probably fucking _execute _me, for all I knew and cared.

My cheeks twitched with pain behind the bogus smile on my lips. "Oh, it's nothing, Mrs. Inoue. Just a…still little hung over from all the Valentine's Day chocolate and wine, is all."

If looks could kill, Mrs. Inoue would've executed me right where I was sitting. "That was yesterday, Takenaka. How about you focus on the day at hand, hmm? How about you do something more productive than hanging over?" Compared to most other days, her words were relatively mild. Not that that made them pleasant.

The only thing I dreaded more than the day itself was the end of it. Not only did I imagine the lack of anything on T.V. that night except lamentation after lamentation of losing one of the greatest models to spank your macaque to, I wondered if I should take some other way home. Did I really want to go by the tracks again, by the place where Misa Amane had plummeted to a concrete death?

On the other hand, I really didn't like the bus or the subway. I cringed at the image of being wedged in on all sides with no room to even check my watch and the scent of cologne and armpits in my face…if I could even get across the threshold in the first place. I needed my space, my air, my solitude. I put up with enough people-crap in the office.

In the end, I decided I'd brave it and walk that way again. Why should I let some stranger bother me to the point of inconvenience? I didn't make her do it, and I couldn't stop her _from _doing it, so for crying out loud, Rin, just keep looking straight ahead, why don't you?!

All the same, I felt like a little kid creeping through the cemetery on a dare, the jitter in my pace almost knocking me off my feet. I held onto my bag as though letting go of it would be the death of me. Milky twilight painted the scenery almost as magnificently as it had the day before, but this time, I didn't have it in me to enjoy it.

_Come on, Rin. One foot in front of the other…just like yesterday. What's the worst that can happen: you see Amane's—_

Suddenly, the air around me felt chillier, as if something had frozen the life out of it. I found myself pulling my jacket tighter around me for warmth as I stopped by the tracks, almost to the point of splitting the seams. Somehow, as I looked both ways to check for an oncoming train, my eyes drifted up to that goddamn skyscraper, contrasting against the veil of pink and orange like a stray brushstroke of black.

—_ghost. _

Oh my God.

There she was.

In the same statuesque position outside the safety rails, in the same fluttering Lolita dress, with the same lifeless pancake face.

All the panic that I had fighting up to that point surged over, turning the blood in my veins to ice. I couldn't look away; it was as if that figure had this magnetic aura that refused to release my eyes from its pull. I don't know how long I stood there staring at her, wiped clean of every ounce of rational thought. It was as if I had become a statue myself, my mouth arid with the lack of words.

All I know is that as soon as the sun had totally melted into the horizon, and the oranges and pinks deepened into lavenders and navy blues—that time when it was no longer daytime but not exactly nighttime yet—she dove, like a doll knocked off of its shelf, her dress flapping violently around her like a broken parachute as she dissolved into the shadows halfway down the side of the building.

No, really. She _dissolved, _from pigtail to toe, like sand between the fingers on a blustery day.

And only when that happened did I stumble backward and land on my butt, overwhelmed with the kind of dizziness that came with the lack of breathing. The kind that came from sitting on the ground in the middle of darkness after having seen something that I really wished I hadn't.

____________

She's still there.

Every night, or day, or whatever the hell you want to call the time, she's there, in the same spot on the same skyscraper, facing the sunset, same wardrobe and all. Stays there until the last sliver of sunlight burrows into the shadow. When the light takes a dive, so does she, in a silence totally uncharacteristic to the image she maintained in life as a perky pop star.

People still talk about her—they're going to be for a while, a long while, or at least until another superstar suffers an even worse death—but no one seems to have noticed Misa's ghost haunting the skyscraper where she, for whatever crazy reason, dove down to the face of the earth, and simultaneously, off of it. If they have, they must be keeping quiet about it. But somehow, I doubt that; people don't usually keep quiet about stuff like that.

Needless to say, I haven't felt too goddamn goofy since then. I really don't want to think that I was the only one who saw her, before and after she died. Hell, I don't even know if that crazy bitch's ghost is haunting that skyscraper at all. She may just be a figment of a guilty conscience that really shouldn't feel guilty, in the first place.

…

_Too _guilty, anyway. I mean, guilty to the extent of hallucinating of sky-high Lolitas.

…

I…I guess the only thing I can do about it now is to avoid that road completely, no matter how great it looks in the sunset. As long as I do that, I should get over it, eventually. I _should. _Eventually.

I'm fixing to take the subway from now on. Yeah, the crowds suck, and I'm always getting forced into some corner across the aisle from some jerk who keeps sneaking eyefuls behind his newspaper like he's some upstanding businessman.

But you know? Being huddled in a dim-lit tunnel with a hundred people is a hell of a lot better than watching one person—never mind the fact that she was a celebrity—jump off the same height over and over again.

Especially when you may have been—oh, God please forbid—the only one who saw it.

And did nothing.

_**END**_


End file.
